Leeds and York

With a little bit of time off Liz and I decided to head up north for a few days rather than stick around London. Our choice was Leeds and York. Well actually it was my choice as Liz has seen most of this stuff already. The main reason for choosing these areas are as they are in Yorkshire, where they film the tv series Heartbeat. It just looks so nice on tv!! But alas, the areas that we were in were not where they film the show but further north in Yorkshire in an area called the Moors...however after that little bit of a disappointment I was still able to have a brilliant time.

Our first stop Leeds was really nice, it reminded me of Brisbane where everyone is nice and the pace is alot slower. There really wasn't much to do in Leeds as it was mostly filled with shops. I swear we saw 5 different shopping centres plus the main shopping mall area. Crazy! There were lots of buskers though in the mall which I really liked listening to. One in particular stood out and I'll include a picture as it was just awesome! This guys gets his dog Bess to sing certain parts of the song by either blowing on his harmonica or saying the word love. Awwww :) We also stumbled across these markets towards the edge of the city and they were filled with everything you could imagine, from fresh fruit and meat to gladwrapped teles and VCRs...haha loved it!


We caught a local bus to York on Sunday afternoon and fell in love with York as soon as I saw it. It is one of the oldest cities in the UK being built in AD71. Holy! What I really liked was the walls which still circle the town. We were able to walk all the way around the city on them and had tea in one of the gates, Walmgate which was just fab. York is also home to the Minster which is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the Northern Europe, it is awesome! We spent most of our time just wandering around all the small streets and looking in all the cute shops. York is also apparently one of the most haunted cities and so with this in mind we decided it would be best to go on a Ghost Walk tour at night. Ha! Actually it wasn't at all scary but it was really cool to listen to all the strange happenings that go on in the city. We even went and had lunch at the oldest pub built in 1503 and whilst deciding what you'd like to eat you also can read about about all the ghosts that live in the pub! Cracking. But what would a visit to one of the oldest places in the north be without an afternoon break of scones, jam, fresh cream and a cup of tea.

Snow!

Well, I know it was 2 weeks ago but I thought it best to write a bit about our snow experience here in London. It was so much fun!! What was even better was that we had been at the pub with Emme Sunday afternoon (£3 pound cocktails...how could we leave?!) and both Liz and I were not looking forward to the prospect of work on the Monday but it was our lucky day as there was no work due to the amount of snow fallen. Nice!! haha

We made snow angels and a wee little snowman. I feel ashamed of ours after I saw Emme's efforts with her gianormous snowman but in my defence, my boots were completely wet and my socks were soaked through so a small one was all I could manage. What a sook!!! But I did enjoy playing in it...it is just so pretty.

School that week was awesome...Monday and Tuesday off, Wednesday was a play in the snow day, Thursday I actually had to teach and Friday it snowed again quite heavily. So even though I made it to school before the snow fell, I still only had half a class where we went and played in the snow and then most of my class left at lunch leaving me with 4 children all afternoon. Sweet!

Blasts from the Pasts - January 2009

We had a lovely catch up with 2 old friends of mine from good Ol' Wello Point. Sally and Beth came to London after travelling around for a short stop over and I was lucky enough to have them squeeze me in!

Ice-skating at Sommerset House

We have ended our weekend on a high note. By heading to the open air ice-skating rink at Sommerset House. It was beautiful. Now I know ice-skating itself is not so beautiful...well not when your watching Liz and I attempt to skate gracefully around and around. But the rink is in the middle of the courtyard at Sommerset House and there is these lovely blue and green lights that made the ice glow and was therefore beautiful. What wasn't beautiful was the 150 other people we had to share the rink with...luckily we escaped without any collisions and we came off the ice after the hour without being knocked down OR falling down ourselves. HOORAY!

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone has had a great start to 2009! We saw in the New Year quite quietly. We went into Camden for dinner and then went to Primrose Hill, which was a short walk away, to watch the fireworks which were happening on the London Eye. We couldn't hear the fireworks but the we could definatley see them. So beautiful!

Liz and I are both doing well. School has gone back already and I have gotten a few set contract days at a couple of schools which is great and Liz is continuing with her nanny duties. We are still enjoying being here but are beginning to miss home especially with this cold cold weather, although, I'm sure once we're home we'll be complaining about the heat! Which brings me to when are we heading back down under....well first of all we'd like to say.....

CONGRATULATIONS!!! To Liz's brother Jeremy and his partner Allie who have become engaged!! We are sad we'll miss your engagement party but are looking forward to seeing you at your wedding!!

So.....this means we will be home for their wedding which we believe they are thinking early September so we will be home around then! We have a fair bit of travelling we'd still like to do so the plan is to do all that before we fly back.

Well that is the general news for now. Ciao :)

Mini Christmas in our apartment :)

Here is Liz and I celebrating our own Christmas before heading off to Belgium. We had so many gifts to open we thought it best to open them instead of taking them all on the bus! Thanks to everyone who sent them over, they were lovely, we had so much fun opening them!! And thank you to the people who sent us cards too!

Christmas in Antwerp

For our 2008 Christmas we headed off to Antwerp as we were invited by Ingrid and Tom to join them for the celebrations as they also had Emme and Lyn (Ingrid and Emme's mum) visiting as well!! What a full little apartment they had!

Our chosen style of traveling was by bus which when we planned it seemed like a good idea. We booked a night bus which left London in the evening to arrive in Antwerp early in the morning thinking that we would just sleep the whole way feeling nice and rested and ready to celebrate. Ha I hear you all say. Yep, I think we got THE worst bus in the world. We had a 4 year kicking our chair and pulling our hair on regular intervals as well as a teenager who continually stared at us (and no we gave her no cause to stare!). We also didn't think about getting on the ferry at Dover where we had to vacate the bus to go up on deck...then when we got to Calais, France we had to go through Border Control....this all happened between 1.30am to 3.30am. So I guess you figured that we didn't really sleep much at all!! But in saying that I was wide awake when Em and Tom came to get us, a friendly hug! It was just what I needed!

Our next three days were mainly a blur of talking, talking and more talking where in between we ate and drank and played games. In Belgium the main celebration/dinner happens on Christmas Eve, however we did not have a tradition Belgian meal but an Aussie one!! Ingrid cooked up a delicious Turkey with all the trimmings including real, that's right, REAL cranberry sauce! We concluded the evening with desserts made by Lyn which are Christiansen traditions...and no wonder they were delicious! We ended our evening with calls back home to Aus. Our Christmas day started off slow with presents and breakfast made by Emme - I tell you these Christiansen woman are welcome in my kitchen any day!! :) For Christmas dinner we were invited to Tom's parents place to have leftovers, of stew which is what they traditionally eat this time of year. The stew we had was deer stew with chocolate and wine I think...it was sooo good! And wine....all our meals were of course accompanied by alcoholic beverages :)

Boxing day we headed into Antwerp to watch 'Australia' at the cinemas...completely disappointed by the movie but we evened that out by treating ourselves to waffles..mmmm